New Year, Same Themes (DeFi and NFTs)

Key Takeaways

• Venture capital funds kicked off 2022 with $359 million invested in NFT projects that are focused on continuing to grow the NFT ecosystem through creator and project incubation. DeFi investment was also highly active, raising $396 million this week, mostly for expanding existing protocols’ product and service offerings. Web3.0 infrastructure projects raised $30 million, $6 million went to gaming, and Bitfarms is keeping its foot on the gas with a $100 million Bitcoin mining expansion roadmap.
  
• Active investors this week include Animoca Brands, CoinFund, DCG, and a16z.
  
• Deal of the Week: OpenSea raised $300 million at a $13.3 billion valuation as it continues to develop its platform infrastructure, add more products for its users, and invest in the growth of the NFT space.

Venture Capital Deals

Sygnum is a Swiss digital assets bank offering services like spot and options trading, custody, and crypto-backed fiat loans, among other traditional financing services for crypto. The bank raised $90 million in a Series B funding round that values the bank at $800 million. The round was led by Sun Hung Kai & Co. with other investors including Animoca Brands, SBI Holdings, and SCB 10X, among others. Sygnum is using the capital to add new DeFi products and services and build a roadmap for other investment opportunities in Web3 and the Metaverse. (Sygnum Valued at $800M in $90M Funding Round: Report)

WOO Network is a liquidity network between exchanges with specialized products that connect users to exchanges, institutions, and DeFi platforms to provide liquidity, trade execution, and yield farming strategies at low fees with little slippage. The network raised $12 million from the Binance venture capital team, Binance Labs, after closing a $30 million Series A funding round in November last year. The funds will be used on hiring for research and development of new products. (Binance Invests $12M in Liquidity Platform WOO Network)

Livepeer is a decentralized video streaming service that lowers the cost of converting and streaming video data by distributing the load throughout its node network. The company raised $20 million in a Series B expansion led by Tiger Global and Alan Howard, among existing backers of the company. The initial Series B round was in July last year with participation from DCG, Coinbase Ventures, and Northzone among others. Livepeer is building a cost-effective Web3 infrastructure capable of competing with the quality of traditional video streaming services like YouTube and Netflix. The funding is going towards hiring and discovery/acquisition of technologies that would improve the platform’s capabilities. (Decentralized Video Streaming Platform Livepeer Raises $20M From Alan Howard, Tiger Global)

Pocket Network is a decentralized blockchain API protocol that leverages over 15,000 nodes to provide Web3 developers with cheap and readily-available data from an array of blockchains. It closed a strategic funding round at $10 million from the likes of Republic Capital, Arrington Capital, and Rock Tree Capital, among others to expand its adoption and node coverage, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Web3 developer activity has been consistently growing throughout 2021 with no signs of a slowdown on the horizon, and Pocket Network is positioning itself to help continue this growth by offering decentralized data at a low cost. (Crypto Infrastructure Firm Pocket Network Raises $10M)

Cion Digital is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that offers digital asset workflow tools for users to easily manage their assets. The company closed a $12 million seed round led by Green Visor Capital and 645 Ventures, with Cota Capital and Epic Ventures participating, among others. The company is using the funds to scale its payment infrastructure and incorporate more traditional financial services products into the digital asset ecosystem through its platform. (Cion Digital secures funds to expand blockchain orchestration platform)

Exotic Markets is a DeFi protocol that is developing a full suite of financial products for wealth management, yield farming, derivatives trading, etc. The protocol raised $5 million in a private token sale led by Multicoin and Ascensive Assets. The funds will be used to develop products where users can earn productive yields denominated in stablecoins as opposed to protocol-native tokens, removing a common pain point in the yield farming community where high yields tend to lead to inflationary dilution of earnings. (Solana DeFi Protocol Exotic Markets Raises $5M Ahead of Mainnet Launch)

Tribal Credit is a credit card and funding solutions company that services emerging markets with a branch in cross-border and bank-to-bank payments with stablecoins. The company raised $40 million in a debt offering that was a mix of fiat and USDC stablecoins financed by Partners for Growth and the Stellar Development Foundation in order to expand its services in Latin America. Small and mid-sized companies in emerging markets have large potential growth but limited access to financial services and could benefit greatly from affordable crypto remittance and payments capabilities. (Tribal Credit raises $40M in ‘hybrid’ debt round funded by dollars and stablecoins)

Metaversal is an investment group focused on NFTs. The company raised $50 million with a Series A funding round led by CoinFund and Foxhaven Asset, with other participating investors including DCG, Rarible, Dapper Labs, among others. With the dynamic Web3 and DeFi atmospheres, the NFT market has a bright future with many new creators and programmers creating increasingly interesting NFTs with expanding use cases such as using them as collateral for loans. Metaversal intends to use the new funds to acquire collectibles and invest in NFT projects to capitalize on this dynamism.

CryptoSlam is an NFT data platform providing free, in-depth, and easy-to-read market data covering a wide array of chains and marketplaces. The platform raised $9 million in a seed round led by Animoca Brands, Binance Smart Chain, Forte, among others. The platform’s goal with the seed funding is to expand its team to support more blockchains and an API tool for other developers to use in order to become a one-stop shop for NFT market data for developers and investors alike. (Mark Cuban, Animoca Back NFT Data Platform CryptoSlam in $9M Round)

Play It Forward DAO is a Southeast Asian guild of over 40,000 players in the play-to-earn (P2E) sector of the metaverse. The guild raised $6 million in a private funding round led by Signum Capital and Kyber Ventures. Play It Forward raised the funds to amplify its scholarship P2E board platforms as well as invest in P2E infrastructure and game projects. Because many P2E games require an initial investment for players to join, Play It Forward provides the capital for players, called scholars, to join the P2E atmosphere in exchange for a share of their earnings. (40,000-member players guild raises $6M to make P2E gaming easier)

Goldfinch is a DeFi lending pool that provides lines of credit to lending businesses to originate and service loans. The company raised $25 million in a Series A extension led by a16z with other investors including Block Tower and Kingsway Capital. The company is fusing crypto fintech with traditional lending practices to create a unique crypto lending system that doesn’t require collateral that hinders growth opportunities for small businesses, especially in emerging markets. Goldfinch is currently restructuring, using the fundraising to launch the Goldfinch Foundation and spinning the original team into Warbler Labs. (A16z Leads Additional $25M Round for DeFi Credit Protocol Goldfinch)

Crypto Capital Markets

Bitfarms (BITF) is a publicly owned Canadian Bitcoin miner that mined nearly 3,500 Bitcoin in 2021. The company had a hashrate of 2 EH/s in mid-November last year, accumulating around 1% of the total network hash rate. Bitfarms secured a $100 million credit facility from Galaxy Digital Holdings in order to fund the construction of four new mining facilities to reach an 8 EH/s hashrate by the end of this year. The company has already drawn down $60 million at a 10.75% APR, and is expecting to continue drawdowns over the next few months as it rolls out its expansion plans. (Bitfarms Secures $100 Million Credit Facility)

Bitbuy is Canada’s first regulated crypto exchange that is focused on making a user-friendly experience for buying and trading a few large-cap tokens. The company is being acquired by WonderFi Technologies for $162 million in a blend of cash and equity. wonderful is a DeFi platform with savings, lending, and crypto market index products also centered around a simplified user interface. The acquisition expands WonderFi’s user offerings into the exchange market while adding Bitbuy’s 375,000 users to the platform. (Kevin O’Leary-Backed DeFi Platform WonderFi to Purchase Bitbuy for $162M in Cash, Shares)

Token Sales

Umee is a DeFi platform where users can perform cross-chain leverage trading and yield farming. The platform raised $32 million in a public token sale on CoinList. The sale will fund hiring developers and engineers to roll out a web app in February. Umee is creating a bridge between the Cosmos and Ethereum ecosystems for DeFi, where traders can leverage assets as collateral on separate chains, including staked tokens. (Cross-chain DeFi hub Umee raises $32M with CoinList token sale)

Deal of the Week

OpenSea is the largest NFT marketplace where users can purchase anything metaverse, from art to music to virtual land. In a Series C funding round led by Paradigm and Coatue, the platform raised $300 million to bring its value up to $13.3 billion.

Why is this a Big Deal?

OpenSea has become synonymous with NFTs, putting it at the leading edge of the NFT frontier, so it should come as no surprise to see its valuation sharply increase almost 10x from its previous valuation at $1.5 billion back in July, 2021. This round of funding is going towards hiring for scaling both product development and customer support as well as launching a grant program for creators and developers to continue to develop the NFT space. The NFT sector, along with the metaverse overall, has experienced massive growth in 2021, with no sign of slowing down in the near future. The growth has been organic and seemingly self-sustaining, as more high-quality thinkers, creators, and developers are pulled into the NFT space by the explosive growth that has already occurred, thereby driving continued growth. With OpenSea’s first-mover advantage and massive investments into maintaining its relevance and competitive advantages, the company is well-positioned to stay at the front of the pack for quite some time. (NFT Marketplace OpenSea Valued at $13.3B in $300M Funding Round)